


if you can't go back, where the hell do you go?

by lesbianrobin



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Families of Choice, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianrobin/pseuds/lesbianrobin
Summary: “Hey, shithead.”Max’s head whips to find Steve leaning against the doorway, hands deep in the pockets of his khakis and his ankles crossed casually, like he hangs out in this funeral home all the time.“Oh.” She clears her throat. “Hey. Asshole.”“If you’re trying to hide, you might want to shut the door,” he says, stepping inside and lightly pushing the door until it clicks shut. The room feels so much smaller.“I didn’t want to freak anyone out.”
Relationships: Steve Harrington & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Comments: 19
Kudos: 150





	if you can't go back, where the hell do you go?

Max ducks out of the funeral as soon as she can.

It’s the first time she’s left Mom alone with him since everything happened, but Mom isn’t really alone with him right now because aunt Nora flew out for the occasion for moral support and there’s a lot of other strangers around, so Max doesn’t feel too much like a monster, creeping through the empty funeral home and trying not to think about the empty casket outside.

Soon there’ll be a lot more empty caskets. She’s the only reason why this one’s getting buried so quickly, her bullshit story about catching a glimpse of Billy as she ran out of the mall being enough for everyone to decide he was dead instead of missing like more than a dozen innocent people in Hawkins are currently classified. They all know. Everyone knows they’re dead, charred and buried under the rubble of Starcourt, but you can’t say it yet, not until the families give up and admit that their dead didn’t just happen to skip town or go on a surprise vacation the night of the fourth.

There’s a single wooden door at the end of the beige-carpeted hallway, slightly ajar. Max peeks in.

It’s not an office. It’s some kind of sitting room, just big enough for a couch, a coffee table, and a single armchair. It’s too small for them to ever bring bodies in here, so Max slips in, leaving the door cracked like she found it and kicking off Mom’s stupid black flats that have been rubbing blisters on her heels all day. She sits on the couch and brings her feet up, hugging her knees.

She used to be jealous of the others. Deep down, in that stupid part of her brain that never listens when she tries to be reasonable, the part that always wants to powerslide to a stop even if the ground’s riddled with broken glass and she’s eaten shit the last five times she tried. She used to be jealous of her friends. They lived through what sounded to her like the blockbuster movie of the century. It’s cool, when the only people who die are strangers, when you can forget that they got torn to shreds and focus on the flipping van and flashing lights and spiked baseball bat. She wished she was there with them. She hated feeling left out, like she got to the party late and had to force her way in.

Maybe she still is a little jealous. Maybe if she’d lived in Hawkins for years she would know how to respond to Dustin’s sad, encouraging little smiles, how to let Lucas hold her hand and squeeze it tight, how to look Mike in the eyes when they’re filled with too much understanding and empathy. Maybe if she’d done this twice already instead of just once she’d know how to set aside her own feelings whenever she holds El, how to hold back the tears and be strong for someone who’s lost so much more than she has, but she’s only done this once before and she isn’t strong enough and she doesn’t know how to do any of it.

Mom will be upset if she starts biting her nails again. Max adds it to her list of failures and chews at her thumb anyway.

Something creaks.

“Hey, shithead.”

Max’s head whips to find Steve leaning against the doorway, hands deep in the pockets of his khakis and his ankles crossed casually, like he hangs out in this funeral home all the time. 

“Oh.” She clears her throat. “Hey. Asshole.”

“If you’re trying to hide, you might want to shut the door,” he says, stepping inside and lightly pushing the door until it clicks shut. The room feels so much smaller. 

“I didn’t want to freak anyone out.”

“I told the others not to worry about you, so you should be good for awhile.” 

He looks… different from everyone else. He doesn’t have the same look in his eye, that awful look she’s gotten from Lucas and Dustin and Mike and Mom and even El since the fourth of July. Maybe it’s because one of his eyes can barely open. “How’s your face?”

“You mean physically or emotionally?”

“Emotionally?” 

“It just feels kind of rude to look like this at a funeral.”

“How is it rude?”

Steve shrugs, squeezing by the coffee table and armchair to sprawl on the other side of the couch, leaning against the arm to face her. His leg nearly brushes her foot. “I don’t know. It’s like wearing off-white to a wedding.” 

She snorts. “God, you’re weird.” 

“Hey, look who’s talking, Barefoot McGee.”

Max swallows and looks at the floor. “They’re my mom’s. I didn’t have anything…”

She trails off. It doesn’t feel right to wear her mom’s shoes, but it doesn’t feel right to be here either. Nothing’s felt right in days. The shoes aren’t that bad, the slacks her mom bought for the occasion are far worse, but the shoes are ugly, and they aren’t hers, and the longer she looks at them the bigger the lump in her throat gets.

Steve shifts and there’s a soft thump. Then a second.

“It’s too hot for this shit,” he grumbles, and Max takes a moment to appreciate the sight of their discarded shoes next to each other on the carpet.

“Why’d you come?”

“What?”

Max looks up from the shoes. Steve’s face is painted in purples, blues, greens, and yellows, and they make her feel sicker than the red she saw the night it happened. He’s still Steve underneath it all, but it’s harder to see him. She needs to focus more.

“Why you? Draw a short straw?”

“Oh. Nah.”

She frowns. “Then why?”

He sighs, sitting up and scooching closer. “Well, I figured if you were anything like me, I’d know where to find you. I hid out here during my great-aunt Bea’s funeral when I was your age.”

“Oh.” It’s not really what she was expecting. 

“And,” he continues, “I didn’t think you really wanted to see your friends right now.”

Max turns so her back is against the side of the sofa, crossing her arms. It’s easier to glare at Steve that way. “Why do you think that?”

“Max,” he says. 

It’s enough. Her lip trembles. “I don’t…” she trails off. 

Steve gives her a tiny smile. “It’s okay not to know.”

Max huffs. “I know they’re my friends.” She chews at her thumbnail, waiting for Steve to say something. He doesn’t. He just keeps looking at her with his stupid sad barely-open eye and his stupid sad butterfly-bandaged split lip. She wishes she could have put one of the Byers’ rainbow band-aids on him this time, too. He’d kept that rainbow band-aid on for like a week last time and it had made her feel good, like even though Billy broke his face she was still able to help fix it, so it was okay. Billy couldn’t break everything. He couldn’t.

But he did.

“They don’t understand,” she whispers, “I hated him.” She inhales and does her best not to cry.

“I know,” Steve says, and she exhales, shaky but tear-free.

“I wish he…”

Max wishes a lot of things. She wishes he wasn’t dead, and she wishes he was a good person so that she could just mourn him like normal, and she wishes he was an even worse person so she could just go dance on his grave.

Sometimes she wishes that Mom had never married Neil, but then that would mean that she would never come to Hawkins, and she can barely remember what life was like before she had the Party. Max doesn’t really like trying to remember. So then she just wishes that Neil was different, and then Billy might be different too, and they might be a family, but then Billy might have still gotten flayed and died and then she would be mourning a brother instead of a something, and maybe that would be worse. 

Steve raises his eyebrows, just a little, like he’s saying  _ go on _ .

“I just wish he was never even here. I don’t… I don’t want him to be… I don’t want him to be dead, Steve, I don’t…” Her breath catches in her throat, and Steve puts a hand on her arm, thumb rubbing in circles as she squeezes her eyes shut and takes deep breaths. One tear leaks out. Max just keeps breathing until she feels closer to okay, like she could open her mouth and let out something other than a sob.

Max keeps her eyes squeezed shut. “I think he’s gonna hurt my mom.”

“Your stepdad?”

She nods furiously, and Steve squeezes her shoulder.

“Has he hurt her before?”

“Uh, nothing…” She sniffs, taking another couple of slow breaths. In and out. In and out. The lump in her throat is starting to hurt. “He hasn’t… um, hit her, or anything. But he’s just… he’s so mad. He’s so mad, and he sometimes squeezes her arm really tight, and he’s so mad, and she’s scared, and I don’t… I don’t know…”

“Shh.” The weight on the couch shifts, and Steve’s pulling her into a hug. “Hey, breathe, okay?”

Max nods again. She can breathe. In and out. In and out. 

Steve’s wearing cologne that makes her nose itch. She wants to say that wearing cologne to a funeral is probably just as rude as showing up with a busted face, at least by his logic, but when she tries to speak all that comes out is an embarrassing squeak, so she shoves her face against his chest and keeps breathing.

“Hey, Max? I gotta ask you something, but you can just shake yes or no, alright?”

She nods.

“Has he ever hurt you?”

She shakes her head.

“Do you think he might?”

In and out. She isn’t really sure, so she shrugs. In and out. 

“Okay,” Steve whispers, so quiet that she figures she probably wasn’t supposed to hear it. He exhales heavily. “Okay.”

Her arms have been just squished in between them this whole time, she realizes. Max wiggles them out and brings them up around Steve to hug back. Not hugging someone back is pretty rude.

“I’m just so scared,” she says, wishing her voice wouldn’t waver. “I’m always scared, and I hate it.”

“Oh, I know you do. Max Mayfield can’t be afraid of anything.”

“God, shut up.”

“I mean it.” Steve shakes her shoulders a little bit. “Hey, I mean it, okay? I know you’re scared, but you’re a badass, Max. You saved my life one time, remember? Me and all of your friends, too. And I’m sure you were fucking terrified, but you did it. You can do it. I know you, okay, and I know that the second shit gets bad, you’ll be brave enough to call me, right? Me and the cops. Maybe the cops first. You know, depending on the situation.”

She huffs out a laugh, and Steve squeezes her shoulders.

“But if the cops don’t do shit, I’ll bring my bat, alright, you just say the word. I don’t… god, I’ll kill him if you need me to, Max. Anything you need. I’m here, okay? If you ever need a place to stay, or if you need a ride anywhere, or if you just need help with a fuckin… science fair project, or Lucas did something dumb, or whatever, I want you to call me. Okay?”

Max nods. 

“You have to promise me if he ever hurts you, you’ll tell someone, okay?”

Max breathes. In and out. 

“Okay?”

She nods, and holds onto Steve’s shirt. 

“I always…” she tries, and a sob threatens to break out, so she closes her mouth. In and out.

“I wanted a brother,” she croaks. “But instead I got…”

“Him.”

“Yeah. I don’t… I always thought he might get better. Like he might just open his eyes one day and he’d love me. But he never… I don’t think he ever loved anybody.”

“I’m sorry.” 

Max breathes. In and out. "Sometimes,” she whispers, “I wish you were my brother.”

Steve laughs, a small incredulous huff and rocks his shoulders. "My dad's probably not as bad as Neil, but I don't think you'd want to live with him, either."

"I'd want to live with you." Max whispers into his shirt, half-hoping he doesn't hear.

Steve squeezes her tighter, kisses the top of her head, and finally, she cries. She stops trying to hold herself up, fully collapsing against his chest and fisting her hands in the back of his shirt as she sobs. Her chest aches and her throat burns and she just presses forward as much as she can, like maybe she could just melt into Steve and he could hold her up forever, until she forgot all about Billy and Neil and she could stand on her own two feet again.

“You know, I’d like to have a sister,” Steve says softly, “I always wanted siblings, but I wanted a sister more than anything. None of that shit even matters, though, you know? It’s all made up. I feel like you’re my sister. So I’m your brother, alright? Doesn’t matter that I’m not, like, actually. You know, I’d look stupid as hell with red hair anyway, so—”

Max laughs, just for a second, and keeps crying. Steve keeps holding her up, and eventually he stops talking, lapses into comforting hums as he holds her and rubs her back. 

They stay like that for some time. She thinks she hears a door creak once or twice, but if anybody peeks in on them they don’t speak, so she keeps her face pressed against Steve’s now-wet shirt, keeps her fists clenched around the fabric and her arms tight around him long after the tears have run out.

“Hey,” he says gently, shaking her shoulder, “I think we gotta go back out there. Your mom’s gonna be missing you.”

“Right,” she says, and winces at the sound of her own voice. Her fingers ache when she lets go of Steve and leans back, wiping at her eyes. “Uh, sorry about your shirt.”

He looks down and snorts. “Hey, at least it’s not blood for once.”

She laughs, rolling her eyes. Steve looks at the door, and Max follows his gaze. Nobody is standing there, but the door is cracked open again, and she feels a little sick.

Steve claps suddenly. “Come on, shoe time.”

Max slips the flats on and stands, nearly tipping over before she regains her balance. She’s too afraid to look at her watch and see how long she’d been using Steve as a tissue. He wrestles with his own shoes before standing with a wince.

“Ugh, I always forget these are too small until I’m already wearing them.”

She holds the door open for him and gestures grandly out toward the hallway, and he curtsies slightly before he passes. 

“Such a gentleman.”

She sticks a foot out and he nearly topples over. Once they’re both in the hall, his hand settles on her shoulder, and the air feels just a bit lighter. It’s harder to breathe as they approach the exit, though, and Max can’t help from stopping in her tracks just before they step back outside.

It’s so bright. If she squints enough, she can see sunlight glinting off the casket across the cemetery, surrounded by sparse groups of mourners that are slowly trickling back toward the parking lot. Her mom and Neil are still by the casket. 

“Let’s make a deal,” Steve says, and she looks up. He’s looking at the casket with a severe frown. “Does your mom ever clean under your bed?”

“Uh, I clean my own room. She and Neil don’t really come in there much.”

He looks down at her. “You want the bat?”

Max blinks. “What?”

“I asked if you want the bat.”

“Yeah,” she says immediately. “But… it’s yours.”

Steve shakes his head and glances out toward the cemetery. “I don’t need it. I want you to have it.” He turns back, and their eyes meet. “You gotta protect your family, right?” 

He smiles. It must hurt, his face busted up like it is, but he smiles anyway, and it’s enough.

Max smiles back. “Right.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi!!! i've missed writing and posting fic SO MUCH omg how is everybody how's everyone doing??? this is the first thing i've really written since like. july. i have a BUNCH of wips that i've just been blocked on for literal months, and then i banged this out in a single evening, so hopefully now that the drought's ended other things will be coming soon :) 
> 
> special thanks to my love sarah (birthdaycandles on here, @steveharrington on tumblr) without whom i would never write or post a goddamn word. also thanks to mrsevadnecake and my buddies pres han mia & liam for all being very kind and encouraging angels!!! and thanks to everyone who continues to read and comment on my fics!!!! it means so much to me whenever i get a comment and y'alls kind words motivate me to keep writing when i'm having trouble.
> 
> title is from "family friend" by the vaccines
> 
> i know all the thanks were excessive but in my defense i have a lot of love and gratitude in my heart and it's been MONTHS so it's just exploding now and y'all will have to deal with it!!! direct all complaints to me @lesbianrobin on tumblr and i'll see you next time!!!


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